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I first got into Dragonball Z about a year ago knowing only a few
characters and very little plot, but I had seen a little bit of the
FUNimation dub of the Radditz saga so I had an idea what the show was
about. Little did I know then how horribly destroyed the show was.
About November of 1998, my friend and I went to a comic convention where
a guy was selling the entire DBZ series from where it left off in
America. My friend bought episodes 70 through about episode 90 or so,
but since I knew nothing of the show I spent my money elsewhere. Later
that day, I had the chance to see most of these episodes, and my life
was literally changed forever. Never had I seen such an interesting,
heart racing, dramatic animation series anywhere (yes, animation series,
FUNimation, not a CARTOON!!!).
After that, I started to watch the American version to learn the plot,
being appalled by how badly it was cut up, or to put it the way I see
it, destroyed. Later, I went back to the convention, which comes to my
city every 2 months or so, and bought several tape volumes of the Majin
Buu saga, which I had recently read Curtis Hoffman's manga summaries
for. It was then that I began to truly fall in love DB/Z/GT, and after
that I tried to get my hands on as many fansubs as I could, and
eventualy I got to see most of every major battle in the DBZ series.
Getting to my point, I deeply love DBZ. It is by far my favortie TV
show ever, so you can understand how disheartening it is to see how
badly UNFUNimation had destroyed the show. Like you, the owner of DBZ
Uncensored, I feel the problem lies in things like writing, dialogue,
and especially ESPECIALLY the music. And now that season 3 is now
available, we can see how much FUNimation keeps digging their claws into
a beautiful series. I haven't even bothered to check out the new tapes,
since I've already seen the episodes in their original presentation.
From what everyone says, the dialogue is worse than before along with
the acting. I really wasn't bothered by the original voice actors, it
was their dialogue that bothered me. Too many bad puns and jokes for a
series that is supposed to be dramatic. Now, the acting has been
destroyed as well along with my hopes of Dragonball Z's US future.
Now I get to my point. I can actually say that now I am glad Dragonball
Z is being destroyed in the US. As hard as it is to say and I know
people will hate me for saying that, I feel it is the only way to save
DBZ over here in the States. Season 3 has shown that nothing is going
to change. Sure, we can now see blood and guts in Dragonball Z, but we
still have bad actors, horrible music, and gut wrenching dialogue, all
things that really made DBZ what it was, and without these, you begin to
get a show that is just a mutilated version of its true self, an evil
twin. But that just may be what it takes to save DBZ, beacause soon
enough people will realize that the show it getting less interesting
that way, and eventually it will become less and less marketable, and
eventually it will die. The way I see it is that people already know
the show isn't like its original counterpart, so when FUNimation's
version is dead and gone, the people who still want to see DBZ will
eventually seek out fansubbers and other distributors and get their
hands on the original versions, and then they will see what they have
been helping to destroy all these years simply by watching and buying
FUNimation's crap.
So my point is pretty simple. DBZ should not stay commercial in the
US. It's time that the control of DBZ in the US goes to those who really
should have it, the fans. Otherwise, US DBZ will slowly spiral down
into the abyss and will be remembered as just another US craze, and not
be remembered for what it truly is, one of the greatest series in the
history of humankind.
Thank You,
- Nathan Cancilla |
   
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